NowhereMon:If it's the reduced density of the atmosphere that generates the savings they should put put vacuum in there.

The air flow generated by the disks rotation is what keeps the heads hovering a minuscule distance above the surface without ever actually touching it. This is why the heads need to be parked when the platters spins down, otherwise they'd damage the part of the surface where data is stored as they land.

NowhereMon:If it's the reduced density of the atmosphere that generates the savings they should put put vacuum in there.

Most likely the helium would leak out unless the construction uses very specific high quality alloys.

A gas is required because the read/write heads float above the platter on the cushion of air or in the case of the new drives helium. If there's no air buffer under the head, any vibration could cause the head to crash into the platter.

It's amazing how many people who live here have no idea where the Hindenburg crashed. I took my motorcycle course right in Lakehurst Naval Base and, after class one day, mentioned I was going to look for the Hindenburg plaque. Everyone else in the class was like, "Wut? Isn't that in Germany?"

BumpInTheNight:I'm curious, how have you confirmed this and what on earth made you think it was a good idea designating an HDD as A rather then C-Z like expected. Did you run out of drive letters to store your pr0n?

I decided to make a disc drive my A:\ drive, and AllData wouldn't recognize that the CD was in the drive.

/porn is stored under a single drive letter. When more storage is needed, NTFS volumes can be mounted to sub-directories without the need for a drive letter.